


Your Brain Has No Continuity

by Norickayer



Category: DreamWorks Dragons (Cartoon), How to Train Your Dragon (Movies)
Genre: Dialogue Heavy, Gen, I can't believe peggy sue isn't a tag already, Peggy Sue, Time Travel, just for fun
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-05
Updated: 2017-11-05
Packaged: 2019-01-29 22:18:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12640341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Norickayer/pseuds/Norickayer
Summary: Every time you relive a memory you rewrite it. The more often you remember something, the less likely the memory is to remain accurate.Fishlegs is pretty sure this isn't what they meant.The one where Fishlegs, Snotlout, and the twins end up re-living the first movie with all of the memories of their season-4 selves.





	1. Those who fail to learn from the past are forced to copy it word for word

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers up until the season finale of season 4 of Race to the Edge. This was mostly written before season 5 came out, but I don't think anything in that season really affects this story anyway.

“This is impossible!” Fishlegs squeaked.

  
“Eh, I donno, seems almost par for the course, if you think about it,” Tuffnut drawled, clearly unimpressed.

  
“Yeah,” his sister agreed, “They said dragon training was impossible! Plus there’s the Red Death’s mind control, the Death Song’s mind control, the Changewings becoming all invisible, the fact that dragons can fly at all, being, like, thousands of pounds of bone and muscle, not to mention the highly improbable survival of Alvin and Dagur all those times they should have died.”

  
Fishlegs blinked, taking it all in. It was uncanny how the twins could go from clueless muttonheads to surprisingly insightful thinkers in the blink of an eye.  
Luckily, after years of close contact with the Thorston twins, Fishlegs knew better than to get distracted. “All of that is merely unlikely, not impossible. But traveling through time? I highly doubt there’s a dragon that can fly into the past!” This last part he shrieked.

  
"Well duh," Tuffnut crossed his arms, giving Fishlegs a look of disapproval. "Last thing I remember, me and Ruff' set fire to some stuff in that Mysterious Cave. Then, BOOM!" He made an elaborate gesture, “If it was a dragon, it exploded us into the past!"

  
“Could be a witch,” Ruffnut suggested lightly.

  
“Or we could’ve left the yaknog out a little too long,” her brother added with a grin.

  
“Or maybe it’s Loki’s greatest prank ever!” Ruffnut cackled and lifted her hands to the sky, as if she were thanking the god she and her brother had dedicated their lives to.

  
“I think all of you are missing the point here,” Snotlout interrupted. A smile grew on his face, slow and insidious, not unlike poisonous mold.

  
Fishlegs was beginning to wonder what he’d done wrong in life, to be stuck with Snotlout and the twins, rather than any of the more reasonable Dragon Riders. “How is-“

  
“We’re here, in the past,” Snotlout interrupted, “Before dragon riding ever became a Thing. Before the war with the Berserkers, or Alvin, or Mildew or Ryker or any of that bullcrap Hiccup put us through!”

Tuffnut scratched his chin, missing the prickle of hair that hadn’t yet begun to grow on his preteen face. “I think I liked all that bullcrap, actually.”

  
Unfortunately, Snotlout was a Viking who wasn’t easily swayed, and he ignored any commentary as if he couldn’t hear any voice but his own.  
“We could change the future!”

  
There was a feeling in the air, a tenseness that reminded Fishlegs of the week when Berk was repeatedly struck by lightning. Unease settled in his stomach.

  
“Oooooooh!” the twins chorused. Evil grins sprouted on their faces, and Fishlegs could tell they were using their foreknowledge to come up with new and astounding pranks to play on their fellow Vikings.

  
He wasn’t sure Berk would survive it.

  
“Hold up!” Fishlegs commanded, drawing up every ounce of confidence he’d gained in the five years since he met Meatlug. So what if they hadn't technically happened yet? He remembered.

  
“Yeah, what?” Snotlout asked, unconcerned.

  
“We can’t just change things,” Fishlegs said with a certainty he didn’t feel. “Think about how badly this could go! Dragons are still attacking Berk. All of our worst enemies are still out there. We could die!”

  
“We didn’t die before,” one of the twins argued back. It almost didn’t matter which one said it. The Thorston twins were a matched set, and their interactions had a set pattern (as Fishlegs had independently recorded on dozens of separate occasions). One of them would propose an idea. The other would, seemingly at random, either unquestioningly support it, or ruthlessly contradict it.

  
In the space of a few seconds, anticipation built in FIshlegs’ mind. The other twin would make their decision at any moment, and Snotlout had already weighed in. If Fishlegs wanted to avoid chaos, if he wanted any support at all from his reckless companions, he had to work fast. He had to be brutal.

  
“We had Hiccup calling the shots then, didn’t we?” Fishlegs’ features hardened as he stared into the faces of his friends, silently reminding them of every time over the last five years (the next five years?) that their lives would depend on the quick thinking of Berk’s worst Viking.

  
The other three traded uneasy glances. The twins were more than a little irresponsible, and Snotlout famously had more courage than sense, but none could deny the truth of Fishlegs’ argument.

  
Snotlout crossed his arms, unable to contradict Fishlegs, but unwilling to admit defeat.

  
“So, what, you want us to hide behind our shields and wait for Hiccup to save the day, again?”

  
“No! Yes! I don’t know!” Fishlegs admitted. “I just know we can’t run out and tell everyone we came from the future!”

  
“Yeah, we’ve tried that already, and there’s no way Berk will fall for it twice,” Tuffnut agreed.

  
“Well I’m not sitting around pretending to be a clueless snot-face again.” Realizing he suddenly had the attention of all three of his companions, Snotlout got uncharacteristically flustered. “Hey! I know I was a jerk, we all know, can we please move on!” He hunched his shoulders defensively and refused to make eye contact.

  
“Uh, I’m not sure we’d manage to not change anything, anyway,” Ruffnut pointed out. “Everything happened really fast back then- or now – or whatever- and I’m not even sure I remember all of it.”

  
“I know I don’t remember all of it,” her brother declared. “Like, when did Hiccup shoot down Toothless in the first place?”

  
“We weren’t there for that, you idiot!” Ruffnut told him.

  
“Oh, that does explain why I don’t remember it.”

  
“I don’t know it we need to act exactly the same,” Fishlegs admitted, “as long as we don’t change anything major, we’ll probably be fine.”

  
“So we can still do stuff!” Snotlout punched the air in excitement, which Fishlegs took as a vast improvement over punching him in excitement.

  
“So we can still-“

  
“I have an idea,” Fishlegs interrupted, hoping to save Berk from whatever the twins had planned. “We might not be able to free them yet, but no one guards the arena where the training dragons are kept, do they? We could get a head-start on training our dragons!”

  
“And prove we can do it without Hiccup’s help!” Snotlout said, excited.

“Um, yeah. I guess so.”

  
\--  
It was, Fishlegs discovered, much more easily said than done. While he’d like to think of himself as the temporary leader of the Dragon Riders (until they returned to the future, or at least until Hiccup-from-the-future came back to help them), he knew he was more like the temporary wrangler of the Dragon Riders, keeping them out of the worst of trouble.

  
The twins had somehow managed to light a fire on the way to the stables, but that was almost expected of them, and didn’t actually draw much attention.  
Not only had they failed to consider how they’d get the dragons out of the cages, which at this point in time still had dragon-proof locks, but they also hadn’t thought about just how far back in time they’d landed. Their mangy group of preteens was still the only loosely connected Bucket Brigade who put out fires during dragon raids. Dragon Training wouldn’t begin for weeks.

  
The stables were not yet full of the dragons.

 

“Where’s Hookfang?” Snotlout demanded, his voice quickly fading from enraged to worried.

  
“I don't see Meatlug, either,” Fishlegs realized. In her place was a younger, blueish Gronkle who was unfamiliar to Fishlegs. He wondered what would happen to this strange dragon that would prompt Gobber to capture another Gronkle for Dragon Training. Would she somehow get free between then and now, or would she die in captivity?

 

A shiver ran down his spine. Fishlegs had almost forgotten that Dragon Training used to be fatal for the Dragons.

  
It wasn’t as if the Vikings wanted to feed the captive Dragons through the winter, after all.

  
"It doesn't look like there's a lot of dragons at all," Tuffnut said thoughtfully. "Wonder what Gobber did with them."

  
“WHAT?” Snotlout practically screamed, his voice reaching a pitch that would be more appropriate to a baby Terrible Terror.

  
“Where’s Meatlug?” Fishlegs asked frantically. He checked yet another empty dragon pen, as if hoping that a two-ton beast could be hiding behind the feeding troughs, or maybe those old rotting barrels.

  
“Forget that bag of boulders, where’s Hookfang?” Snotlout gave up searching the ground and looked to the sky. “Hookie? Fangster?” he called.

  
The twins chuckled at the sight. “Does he think it flew through the chain fence?” Ruffnut asked.

  
Tuffnut’s eyes widened. “Whoa.” He skipped a few feet away, giving himself the space to make a grand gesture without knocking into his sister. “Think of it! A dragon that flies through walls!” He crouched lower and carefully surveyed the dragon ring, as if a Monstrous Nightmare could fly through the thick stone wall at any moment.

  
“Stop being dumb and help me find my dragon!” The last part could only be classified as a screech. The twins froze, stared at Snotlout for a moment, and then made a show of picking up small objects to check under them: a broken shield, a discarded axe handle.

  
Snotlout groaned and gave up.

  
“Did we do this?” Fishlegs whispered.

  
“Huh? Speak up!” Snotlout demanded.

  
“We showed up during a dragon raid. That must’ve been when Berk should have captured Meatlug and Hookfang. And we messed it all up!”

  
“If you think the ‘bucket brigade’ going AWOL made my dragon disappear, you’re crazier than I thought!”

  
“How else do you explain this?” Fishlegs demanded, straightening his posture, instinctually making himself bigger at the threat of confrontation. Even now, in their younger bodies, the difference in height between the two boys was dramatic.

  
The Thorston twins stood to the side, quietly observing.

  
“How long do you think it’ll go on?” Tuffnut asked his sister.

  
“Eh, their record is seven minutes, but usually Hiccup interrupts them way earlier.”

  
“Oh, yeah, right.” Both siblings settled in to watch the fight.

  
"Good thing we used the fire as a distraction to nick this," Ruffnut said, admiring the rough iron key she recently pickpocketed from Gobber."

  
"Yeah, otherwise it'd be pretty hard to train Dragons."

  
The twins sat in silence for a moment, watching the fight continue.

  
“They’re getting pretty mad,” Tuff observed. “Maybe someone should go get-“

  
Like two synchronized watches striking midnight, both twins stood straight up.

  
“Hiccup’s not here!” they both realized.

  
“Not it!” “Not it!”

  
“You lost!”

  
“No, you did! I clearly said it first!”

  
Ruffnut growled in frustration. “Fine, we both go.”

  
The two Vikings stomped toward their friends in resignation. Tuffnut grabbed Fishlegs by the ear just as Ruffnut grabbed Snotlout’s nose. Both twins pulled, leading their charges away from each other, punctuated by shouting and cursing.

  
“What was that for?” Snotlout demanded, holding his nose.

  
Ruffnut snickered. “For fun.”

  
“Oh, and because you guys are being total mutton-heads,” Tuff added.

  
\---------------------  
A careful search of the cages revealed only Barf&Belch, Stormfly, and the unfamiliar Gronkle, as well as a small flock of Terrible Terrors huddled together in the back of a particularly grimy enclosure.

  
“I can’t work with this!” Snotlout complained loudly. “No Hookie! No Nightmares at all! Just a disaster waiting to happen, a bunch of ankle-biters, a sheep with wings, and-“ he looked thoughtful for a moment. “Hey, I bet I could ride Stormfly.”

  
He walked toward the Nadder cage slowly, an earnest smile on his face. “Hey girl~”

  
It quickly became apparent that, no, he could not ride Stormfly.

  
“Wow, I didn’t know Nadder spines could cut through metal!” Tuffnut wondered aloud.

  
Apparently, they could. Snotlout sadly cradled the remains of his helmet.

  
“Well that sucks,” Ruffnut mocked, “guess you’ll have to ride a Terror after all!”

  
"No one's riding a Terror," Fishlegs chided. "Look, you've ridden her before, haven't you? You just have to stroke her like this."

  
Fishlegs approached the Deadly Nadder, trying to see her as the friendly, vain dragon companion rather than the horrifying agent of death. He offered her a bit of dried chicken, and only flinched a little when the dragon reached out her beak-like mouth and took the food in her teeth.

  
"Good girl," Fishlegs murmured. "Good Stormfly."

  
"Well, that's enough for me," Ruffnut declared, "Clearly you have to ride Stormfly."

  
"What?" Fishlegs was surprised, but already rearranging plans in his head. He was used to a Gronkle, yes, but it would be painful to replace Meatlug so easily.

  
"Oh no!" Snotlout cried, "I'm not flying a Gronkle!"

  
"So you do want the Terrors?" Tuffnut asked.

  
"Keep 'em," his friend snorted. "At least the Zippelback has firepower."

  
"-Wait, you can't take-" Ruffnut began to say. She was cut off by the purple Gronkle, who had regained her courage just in time to tackle Ruffnut, presumably in search of fish.

  
"Ok," Ruff admitted, enjoying an enthusiastic Gronkle-tongue bath, "Maybe you can take Barf&Belch."

  
Fishlegs frowned, redoing the simple arithmetic. "But that leaves Tuffnut with-"

  
"MWAHAHAHAHA!" The other three riders turned to find Tuffnut, posing dramatically as a half-dozen Terrible Terrors flocked around him. He raised his arms to the ceiling. "I AM THE MASTER OF TERROR!"

  
"I guess that works."

  
\-----  
Simply assigning dragons to riders took most of the night, but the teens returned the next night, ready to get started.

  
Fishlegs took to Stormfly easily, a pairing only matched by Tuffnut and his flock of Terrors, who seemed to immediately adopt Tuffnut as their own. By contrast, Snotlout and Ruffnut struggled.

  
"You have to be gentle with Gronkles," Fishlegs was trying to explain to Ruff, "They're very sensitive!"

  
Ruffnut huffed in annoyance.

  
Meanwhile, Tuffnut was trying to coach Snotlout on the care and handling of a Hideous Zippleback:

  
"Tap once behind the jaw for the gas, and twice to spark."

  
"I'm doing that!" Snotlout complained. His dragon spat more gas.

  
"Oh, I see the problem," Tuff realized, "You're only sitting on one head!"

  
Snotlout rolled his eyes. "I've only got one butt!"

  
It was a work in progress.

  
\------------  
Unlocking the cages didn't mean the teens could safely smuggle the dragons out of the stables, so any training had to be done under the cover of night, with lookouts posted.

  
"I know that you both know how serious this is," Fishlegs berated the twins one night, after discovering them sleeping on the job.

  
"But do WE know that you know that we know?" Ruffnut asked.

  
"Yeah, and if we do, do you know that we know that? Ya know?" Tuffnut added. "Wait, what were we talking about?"

  
Fishlegs groaned and ignored their banter. "If anyone finds out we're training dragons, we could get them killed."

  
"Also, we could get ourselves killed," Snotlout added, "Don't forget that."

  
"Relax," Tuffnut said, "I left Smidvarg Jr. in charge. Look, there he is now!"

  
Tuff pointed to the tiny green Terror who sped toward them like a bat out of Helheim. The tiny reptilian projectile hit his trainer in the stomach and knocked Tuff off his feet.

  
"Wait, if he's here, does that mean-"

  
Tuffnut gasped theatrically. "We've been spotted. Scatter!"

  
"Quick, lock up the dragons!" Fishlegs hissed. Snotlout jumped to obey, which was a first, knocking over a bucket of fish but otherwise working very efficiently to hide the evidence of Dragon Training.

  
By the time Gobber's uneven footsteps led him to the center of the dragon arena, the only evidence left was the smell of fish and the teenagers themselves, loitering around and looking guilty.

  
"I knew it!" Gobber exclaimed, pointing his hook at Snotlout's nose. "It was ye who stole my keys!"

  
"Hey!" Snotlout protested, "No it wasn't!"

  
"Yeah," Tuffnut agreed, "it was - ow!" His sister elbowed him.

  
Gobber chuckled. "Ye thought ye could fool ol' Gobber the Belch, but I know what's going on 'round here."

  
Fishlegs desperately pretended not to be terrified. "You do?"

  
"I do." Gobber leaned in and stared directly into FIshlegs' eyes. "Yer getting a head start on Dragon Training!"

  
The teens collectively heaved a sigh of relief.

  
"I like the enthusiasm, but yer still in trouble!" Gobber bellowed, frightening the group of riders who had just begun to relax. "Dragons aren't toys! Ye could be killed without me to supervise! Ye'll just have to wait until the start of training like everyone else."

  
He confiscated the key, but Fishlegs still considered himself lucky. All was not lost yet.

 

\---------  
Hiccup was concerned.

  
More concerned than usual.

  
He was used to being the village pariah. "Hiccup the Useless" wasn't well-regarded and didn't have many friends. He was used to being pushed aside, mocked, and bullied.

  
But this was weird, even for his life.

  
First, Fishlegs started to avoid him, instead spending more time with Snotlout and the twins.

  
That was depressing, if expected. While Fishlegs, like Hiccup, was cowardly and nerdy and altogether un-Vikingly, at least Fishlegs had the body type. Hiccup himself was more string bean than Viking. If FIshlegs had finally decided to throw in with the "real" Vikings, Hiccup didn't blame him. Much.

  
Then came the weird looks. Every time he came across the other teens, they would get quiet. While they tried to hide it, they would also each silently watch Hiccup until he passed them by.

  
The last straw was the bits and pieces of conversation he did manage to make out: sentence fragments snatched before Snotlout noticed he was around, Fishlegs' mutterings when he didn't realize he was speaking aloud.

  
It was concerning, then unsettling, then creepy. When he caught an entire sentence muttered by Ruffnut to Snotlout as he passed their table in the Great Hall, it was abruptly terrifying.

  
"After everything, I forget that he still has two legs," she had said.

  
Snotlout's reply was worse: "For now."

  
\-----  
"Your friends aren't planning to maim you," Stoick told his son.

  
"One: did you hear any of what I just told you, and Two: they aren't my friends," Hiccup replied.

  
"Come on, Hiccup," his father argued, "Why would they want to maim a fellow Hooligan? The twins get up to a lot of... mischief, but trying to kill another Viking would have consequences, no matter who it was."

  
"Dagur tried to drown me last time he was on Berk."

  
"Oswald's son? Those Berserkers are tough; it probably just got out of hand." Stoick paused as a thought occurred to him. "In fact, you could learn a lot from Dagur! To get a Viking's respect, you've got to show them you aren't afraid of them!"

  
"I am afraid of them," Hiccup explained again, "I'm afraid they're going to feed me to the dragons!"

  
Stoick sighed. "Look, son. You're the heir to the chief. You've got to be able to earn their respect. I can't do that for you. Now hand me that axe. We're leaving at sunrise for one last shot at the dragons' nest."

  
"You're leaving me here?" Hiccup almost squeaked.

  
Stoick frowned. "Well I'm certainly not bringing you on a dragon raid. Stay here. You start dragon training with Gobber next week."

  
Hiccup groaned.

  
\-----  
Dragon training was worse and better than expected, in different ways.

  
On one hand, Hiccup almost got torched by the Nadder before Gobber pulled it away with his hook. Being up close and personal with aggressive dragons was much more terrifying than watching the downed Night Fury from afar.

  
Astrid and Snotlout excelled, as expected. Snotlout seemed to know all of Gobber's advice before he said it, and Astrid's agility, technical skill, and fierceness eventually cowed the Nadder into submission.

  
Hiccup caught Fishlegs glaring at Snotlout after that lesson. Initially, Hiccup was hopeful that they could bond over mutual jealousy of Snotlout and he and Fishlegs could be allies again in the face of Viking violence, but it was not to be. When Fishlegs saw Hiccup look over, he quickly shuffled away.  
So no help from that corner.

  
The only good thing about dragon training was that it kept him distracted. He was so focused on being terrified of the dragons, that he forgot to be terrified of his fellow students.

  
That is, until things got weird.

  
\--------  
“Yer father knows the treaty isn’t up for renewal until next year, right?” Gobber asked the slightly manic teenager still standing on the docks of Berk.

  
“Of course, of course,” said Dagur, the heir to the Berserk tribe. He wore an unsettling grin that Gobber couldn’t quite trust. “This isn’t a diplomatic mission. I’m not here as the Heir to the Berserk tribe, just as a friend looking to visit.” He gestured behind him to the small boat he’d arrived in. “I haven’t brought a single Berserk guard with me, after all.”

  
“Uhuh,” Gobber said, unconvinced. He crossed his arms and gave Dagur his best ‘I was a teenager once and I know when I hear bullshit’ look.

  
Dagur let the smile go, leaving an odd, alert look on the boy’s face. He leaned closer to Gobber and lowered his voice. “Look, I can see you’re a smart guy. From one ally to another, I’ll let you in on a little secret. Can we talk somewhere more private?”

  
After delivering his proposal, Dagur quickly stepped back and gave Gobber an ‘innocent’ smile. As if the boy was anything of the sort.

  
Gobber grunted. “From one ally to another, of course. I’m sure you won’t mind Sven coming along. For…security.” Gobber smiled, daring the boy to argue. Sven stood tall and Silent behind Gobber, like one of the sentinel statues that guarded Berk's harbor.

  
Instead, Dagur examined Silent Sven and nodded. “Sounds reasonable.”

  
\----------  
“Who’s where now?” Tuffnut asked.

  
“Dagur! Docks! Now!” Fishlegs panted, having run all the way to the center of Berk to relay the news.

  
“Isn’t he dead?” Ruffnut asked.

  
“Or, you know, back on Berserk being crazy and apparently not-killing his dad? He wasn’t anywhere near here last time!” Snotlout grumbled.

  
“Well, he’s here now,” said Fishlegs. “And he’s headed for the Great Hall with Gobber.”

 

\---  
Although Hiccup didn't realize at first, it started with the twins.

  
When put up against the Hideous Zippleback in the ring, they somehow set off an explosion that ultimately blew up a bundle of grass right into the dragon's faces. Both heads went cross-eyed and fell over, wriggling on the dirt floor of the arena.

  
At the time, Hiccup (like Gobber, who gave them full marks) assumed the explosion confused the dragon, sending it into shock. It wasn't until weeks later, when he saw Toothless rolling around in a patch of the same grass, that he began to suspect otherwise.

  
The next clue was more obvious. The Thorston twins were expected to do things that were unconventional, destructive, and occasionally effective. But Fishlegs was not known for his boldness.

  
The large boy was in the arena alone, facing a purple Gronkle. The dragon surged toward him, slowly gathering speed. At this rate, even if it didn't attack, the force of its tackle could crush a Viking easily. Fishlegs widened his stance, stood tall, and reached into a bag at his side.

  
He took out something- a rock, Hiccup thought. Not a great weapon, but at least it was something.

  
Fishlegs threw the rock with all his might. He missed the dragon by a mile, instead hitting the wall of the arena with enough force to leave a mark in the stone wall.

  
The gronkle faltered. It stopped mid-charge, its entire body moving to watch the arc of the rock.

  
Then Fishlegs threw another one. This time, the Gronkle was off. The rock, which once again missed the dragon entirely, tumbled into the Gronkle's empty stable, pursued by the dragon herself.

  
"Eh, I suppose that one counts as a success," Gobber said. "Technically."

  
Gobber must have thought that FIshlegs' aim was Just That Bad, but Hiccup thought otherwise. Somehow, the other boy knew the Gronkle would follow the stone.

  
Excitement bloomed in Hiccup's small chest. Finally, a competition he could win.

  
\----  
Despite his sudden arrival, Dagur didn't seem to be in any sort of rush. He smiled good-naturedly at the trainees, and barely tried to injure Hiccup at all (the slap on the back he offered in greeting sent Hiccup face-first into the dirt, but that clearly wasn't malicious. Gobber did that by accident several times a month).

  
He seemed very interested in Dragon Training. Gobber, who thought that it was a great opportunity to keep an eye on Dagur, invited him to sit in on the sessions. Dagur agreed with relish.

  
Fishlegs tried to keep an eye on Dagur whenever possible. He was a wildcard, the most obvious change in the established timeline. Fishlegs had wasted entire sheets of paper trying to map out how the modest changes he and the riders made could have possibly led to Dagur's arrival on Berk. So far, nothing added up.

  
He watched Dagur explore the rough terrain of the island. He saw Dagur talk to Bucket, to Mulch, and even to Mildew, the ill-regarded hermit who lived on the edge of town.

  
He didn't see Astrid follow Hiccup into the forest. He didn't see Dagur trail behind her, always out of sight.

  
\----  
After Fishlegs' game of Gronkle fetch, Hiccup found a soft spot on the Nadder's jaw which made her fall asleep. On his turn, Fishlegs led her around the whole arena, staying in her blind spot the entire time. Astrid hit her with the broad side of her axe, stunning the beast.

  
The week after, Hiccup distracted the Terrible Terrors by using the sun's reflection on his shield. Tuffnut and Ruffnut taunted them into using up all of their fire, rendering them almost harmless. Astrid kept them at a safe distance with throwing knives.

  
During the last lesson before the raiding party returned to Berk, Hiccup pulled out all of the stops and laid his hand on each of the Zippleback's muzzles.

  
"That's nothing, watch this," Snotlout boasted. He whistled, and the dragon took flight, gliding as far as it could under the canopy of chains to land at Snotlout's side. Snotlout smirked. He snapped his fingers and pointed to one of the practice shields mounted to the wall. The Zippleback, on cue, shot a stream of gas at the indicated shield, and ignited it, blasting its target from the wall.

  
Gobber and the other students stared in shock. Snotlout's smug grin melted off of his face as he realized what he had just done. "Oops."

  
Fishlegs groaned and covered his face with one massive hand.

  
"WHAT?!" roared Astrid.

  
"WHAT?!" roared Gobber.

  
Dagur, from his place in the audience, broke out into deranged laughter.


	2. Dagur the Dedicated

Gobber yelled and roared and lunged for Snotlout, hook gleaming in the afternoon sunlight.

  
Snotlout yelped and flinched, and his (new) dragon took that as a signal. Barf&Belch leapt between the two Vikings and roared right back at Gobber, their wings spread wide in a territorial display.

  
Gobber quickly rolled out of the way and came at Snotlout from the side. Barf&Belch tried to track his movements, but ended up twisting their necks around one another, eventually losing balance and falling over.

  
Gobber lifted Snotlout up by the back of his tunic.

  
“What the blazes was that about, boy?” Gobber demanded, “What have you done?”

  
The twins had run for cover. Astrid was right behind Gobber, looking murderous.

  
Hiccup had shrunk into himself, eyes shifting frantically, looking for an escape.

  
Dagur hadn’t stopped laughing.

  
“It’s not just him.”

  
It took Fishlegs a moment to realize that he had actually spoken aloud, but he quickly continued. “We’ve all been training dragons.” He took a deep breath, and told Gobber the secret truth, the legacy that FIshlegs would always be proud of. “Gobber, yours is the last generation of Berk to fight dragons. And we’re the first Riders.”

  
There was a moment of frozen silence.

  
“They aren’t what you think!” Hiccup blurted out, clearly emboldened by Fishlegs’ speech. “They aren’t monsters! We can work with them!”

  
“This is what you’ve been doing?” Astrid asked, surprise winning out against disgust.

  
“What, all of you?” Gobber wondered, looking around at the trainees.

  
“Yup,” Tuffnut replied. “Guilty,” his sister agreed.

  
Snotlout and Fishlegs nodded grimly.

  
“I mean, I didn’t know about the others, but there’s a Night Fury-“ Hiccup began.

  
“A Night Fury?” Gobber demanded, and that was enough to get Snotlout off the hook and Hiccup onto it.

Gobber wasn’t fully convinced, but after the display in the arena and seeing Hiccup’s clear bond with Toothless, he accepted that dragons could at least be tamed.

\-----

  
“Wolves can be tamed, wildcats can be tamed, why not dragons,” Gobber asked philosophically over dinner the next night in the Great Hall. He started off a debate with the other adult Vikings who remained behind. He stated his case calmly, with no indication that it was anything other than a passing thought. No one left the table fully persuaded of the idea, but they at least agreed that it would be really cool. They were Vikings, after all.

  
He winked at the table of trainees as he passed them on his way out the door.

\---

  
“You’re all… from the future.” Hiccup said, testing out the words.

  
“Yes.”

  
“And in the future, all of Berk rides dragons?” Astrid clarified.

  
“Not all, but a lot of us, yeah. We live in peace now.”

  
Hiccup shook his head. “Uh, no offense, but- really? Berk? The Hooligan tribe? Five generations of dragon slayers? An entire island of stubborn, violent Vikings?”

  
“They coexist with dragons, yes.” Fishlegs smiled. “It’s really amazing. It’s been five years since the end of the Dragon War, and we’ve come up with some amazing-“

  
“And my dad went along with this?” Hiccup interrupted. Fishlegs was privately amazed that Hiccup’s incredulity won out against his curiosity.

  
“He really did. Rides a Rumplehorn now,” Tuffnut added.

 

“He-“ Hiccup sputtered, “Stoick the Vast rides a dragon?”

  
“You don’t know the half of it,” Snotlout told him.

  
A seventh voice entered the conversation, shocking everyone else silent:

“Wow, I wasn’t sure if I could really believe it,” Dagur exclaimed. His smile was in full force today, stretching almost from ear to ear.

  
“Uh, Dagur!” Fishlegs greeted in fright, “Uh, I can explain-“

  
“Hiccup really doesn’t remember! Oh, this is hilarious, the leader of the dragon riders left out of the adventure! And Astrid, too.” He turned to her, and FIshlegs was unsure if the sympathy on his face was real or feigned. “You should be his right hand, the Lieutenant to his Captain.” Dagur paused. “This must be really confusing to you.”

  
“Holy shit, you remember,” Tuffnut breathed.

  
“Wait, how much do you remember?” Snotlout asked timidly. “Like, are we talking to Leader-of-Berserk Dagur or Flew-into-a-Trap-to-Save-Our-Asses Dagur?”

  
“Yeah, hey, aren’t you dead or something?” Ruff asked, tactless as ever.

  
“Dagur’s dead?” Hiccup asked.

  
“Dagur’s the leader of the Berserk Tribe?” Astrid asked.

  
“Currently neither. I survived the trap, and currently dear old Dad agreed to put off his journey of discovery until I can bring Heather home.”  
“And you’re here because….?”

  
Dagur’s smile turned sour. He looked much closer to the evil mastermind than the penitent brother. “Heather is missing. Her foster parents haven’t seen her in weeks. My best guess is she woke up like we did and immediately ran away.”

  
As was usual for him, Dagur’s affect did a 180 again. When he looked up at Hiccup, his face was pinched, contrite. “I think she might be running from me. So I need your help to convince her I won’t hurt her.”

  
Just when the tension fell and the riders unconsciously swayed in the direction of trusting Dagur, he continued.

  
“And if someone’s taken her, I will destroy them.”

  
On this, Fishlegs and Dagur completely agreed.


End file.
